Human Rights and Reconciliation

Concluding remarks by Tom Calma,

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner and Race Discrimination Commissioner, Australian Human Rights Commission

Australian Human Rights Centre Annual Lecture 2008  – ‘Human Rights and Reconciliation: Bridging the gap in times of transition’ by Professor Stephan Parmentier, Faculty of Law, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium

Thursday 25 September 2008

First can I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land where we are meeting, the Gadigal peoples of the Eora nation.

Thank you to Andrea Durbach and the Australian Human Rights Centre for the invitation to speak tonight, and also to Amber Rowe for her organisation of this event.

My thanks also to Professor Stephan Parmentier for his insightful comments.

Reflecting upon different international experiences of transitional justice is a thought provoking topic in any context.

But I believe that Professor Parmentier’s argument about the necessary link between reconciliation and human rights has particular significance to all of us here tonight, at a time when the process of reconciliation in Australia is at a crossroads.

In the time available to me, I therefore want to consider some of the implications of what you have said in the Australian context, and more specifically, in relation to issues that are faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

The first point I want to make is that I strongly agree with Professor Parmentier that for many people, the concept and process of reconciliation in Australia is a difficult one to understand.

In part, this is because reconciliation in Australia is a concept that remains very young.

The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, the Bringing them home report, the High Court’s recognition of native title just 16 years ago, and of course, the reconciliation movement, all came into the public consciousness for the first time in the 1990s.

These, then, are still recent developments: and more so when we consider that they follow on over 200 years of disempowerment, and non-recognition, of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their human rights.

As a nation, we have only truly begun to deal with the historical legacy of Australia’s treatment of Indigenous peoples in the past two decades.

What we have heard tonight tells us that Truth and Reconciliation processes, if pursued alone, do have their limitations. But when we consider the progress that was achieved by the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission in a relatively short space of time, the analysis we have heard from Professor Parmentier tonight must also lead us to rue the opportunities that we, as a nation, lost over the past decade in Australia.

Our previous government’s firm refusal to engage with, expose, and deal with the truths of our shared history led to a loss of confidence by many people- especially Indigenous peoples – in the capacity of Australia as a nation to achieve restorative justice, and to undergo a true process of reconciliation with its Indigenous peoples.

Why, then, do I say that we are now at a crossroads in Australia?

In his famous speech at Redfern Park, Prime Minister Paul Keating argued that the process of reconciliation must start with non-Indigenous Australia undertaking an act of recognition: an act that recognised and acknowledged the truth of our shared history.

And 15 years later, in February this year, we finally saw that national act of recognition take place, when the federal Parliament formally apologised to the stolen generations for their experiences of forced removal from their families and cultures.

I believe that the National Apology was a watershed moment in our history. But in offering the formal response to the apology to the Prime Minister at Parliament House that momentous day I stated:

Let today be a new beginning, not an end point. 

This should be seen as the first step in a partnership.

The challenge of forging this partnership is now the true challenge for reconciliation in this country.

And as Professor Parmentier has eloquently argued tonight, a partnership for reconciliation will be a hollow one indeed, if it is devoid of a human rights focus.

The Northern Territory Intervention legislation enacted last year stands as a telling example of this point.

Consider the Pintubi peoples of Central Australia, who only had their first contact with non-Indigenous peoples in 1984. Up until the time that they first settled in the township of Kintore that year, they had continued the hunter-gatherer traditions that their elders had practised for thousands of years.  

If we fast-forward 23 years, Kintore is now a ‘prescribed community’ under the Northern Territory emergency intervention. Its people are subject to restrictive welfare quarantining, and a myriad of other processes that have been deliberately excluded from the operation of the Federal Racial Discrimination Act and the NT Anti-Discrimination Act.

The Kintore example highlights the contradictions of where we stand at this time on reconciliation. It reflects on a system of Indigenous affairs that is dominated by short-term crisis management responses, where the by-passing of human rights protections is deemed expedient and justifiable by governments.

And as I am asked over and over again by Aboriginal peoples as I travel around Australia – “how can I believe in reconciliation when the government is still enacting legislation designed to discriminate against me on the basis of my race?”

It is for this reason that I say tonight that addressing the continuing non-recognition of our rights, and dealing with the consequences that flow from that non-recognition, is now the true challenge for reconciliation in our country.

Over the next 12 months we will either rise to the human rights challenges facing Indigenous peoples and ensure that there is a clear synergy between reconciliation and human rights protection, or we will condemn reconciliation to being a marginal concept of little relevance to Indigenous peoples.

The task is a considerable one. But I believe that the commitments we have seen from the federal government during this past year show that we do have reason for hope.

In March this year, the Prime Minister and federal Opposition leader, along with every major health organisation in the country, committed to the Statement of Intent to close the gap on life expectancy. Among other things, the Statement of Intent includes the following commitments,:

• To develop a comprehensive, long-term plan of action, that is targeted to need, evidence-based and capable of addressing the existing inequities in health services, in order to achieve equality of health status and life expectancy between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and non- Indigenous Australians by 2030.
• To ensure primary health care services and health infrastructure for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples which are capable of bridging the gap in health standards by 2018.
• To ensure the full participation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their representative bodies in all aspects of addressing their health needs.
• To respect and promote the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, including by ensuring that health services are available, appropriate, accessible, affordable, and of good quality; and
• To measure, monitor, and report on our joint efforts, in accordance with benchmarks and targets, to ensure that we are progressively realising our shared ambitions.

In July this year, the Government also announced its intention to establish a national Indigenous representative body.

This announcement was a welcome step, given that the information presented in my Social Justice Reports over the past 5 years has strongly indicated a growing disconnect between policy makers and Indigenous peoples and communities.

In my view, a National Representative Body is crucial for the fulfilment of Indigenous Peoples’ self-determination in Australia. And it is my hope that through a Representative body, we may see future policies developed upon the principles of genuine negotiation and engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, rather than upon the notion that Indigenous peoples are merely passive recipients of government services.

Finally, the Australian Government has also announced that it will formally state its support for the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. By doing so, they will raise hopes and ambitions for a new partnership and relationship between Indigenous peoples and the Australian nation. The Declaration is a positive, aspirational document that:

• affirms that indigenous peoples make a unique contribution to the diversity and richness of civilisations and cultures, and promotes cultural diversity and understanding;
• explicitly encourages harmonious and cooperative relations between States and indigenous peoples, as well as mechanisms to support this at the international and national levels; and
• is based upon principles of partnership, consultation and cooperation between indigenous peoples and States, with the relationship to be based upon principles of justice, democracy, respect for human rights, non-discrimination and good faith.

In short, the Declaration provides a framework for reconciliation, based on the recognition of Indigenous peoples’ human rights.

That is why there is hope.

But although these formal commitments to justice, to partnership and to respect have been made, the actions to confirm them have yet to be taken.

If we learn from the experiences discussed by Professor Parmentier this evening, it is also important for us to question the adequacy of the steps that have been taken by the government to address the ongoing situation of the stolen generations since the apology.

There remains a pressing need for psychosocial and cultural healing services for Stolen Generations members and their families. And ultimately, an apology without monetary compensation is the starkest example of what a commitment to reconciliation looks like when it is not accompanied by a corresponding commitment to human rights, to redress, and to justice.



Time will tell.

But remember, we are not passive bystanders who simply observe the passage of history.

As Indigenous peoples, as academics, as human rights defenders, as an Australian community, we must promote justice. We must make our politicians understand that we have firm expectations that reconciliation must come with rights, and also with accountability.

For my part, my forthcoming Social Justice Report to the federal Parliament will do three things.

First, it will outline what I see as the necessary components of a healing package for the stolen generations, and for those experiencing family violence and abuse in Indigenous communities.

Second, it will look at how we lock in government commitments to ‘close the gap’ in a range of areas, and ensure that these commitments result in genuine partnerships with Indigenous peoples.

Finally, it will set out a vision of how we can achieve adequate legal human rights protection for Indigenous peoples in Australia.

I believe that a commitment to these actions would begin to address Australia’s ‘unfinished business’. They would begin to address the shortcomings of an Australian identity that has not yet fully grappled with its treatment of Indigenous peoples.

And most importantly, it would begin to have a healing effect on our Indigenous peoples, and on the nation as a whole.

In short, bridging the gap between reconciliation and human rights in these ways would lead to a kind of justice that we might consider to be truly restorative.

I would like to conclude by once again thanking Professor Parmentier for his stimulating comments tonight. I will take them with me as a prescient reminder of how far we have travelled, but also how far we still have to go on the road to achieving lasting reconciliation and human rights in Australia.

Thank you.